Pages

Monday, November 18, 2013

On last month's post about my experiences using birth hypnosis, I mentioned that I used the Birth Relaxation Kit during Ivy's pregnancy and birth. The company's founders, a husband-wife team of certified hypnotherapists, generously donated the program for me to test out and review.

Dr. Mavi Gupta, a board-certified physician and hypnotherapist, created the Birth Relaxation Kit along with her husband Jeremy Dyen, a musician and hypnotherapist. They combined their medical, musical, and hypnosis training to create an effective, affordable birth hypnosis program.

When Mavi was pregnant with her first baby, she had originally planned a hospital birth with an epidural. However, exposure to birth hynposis helped her and Jeremy look into other options, and they ultimately decided to have a home birth with a midwife. She writes:

On February 7th, in the middle of winter, our daughter Anjali was born at home with our midwives and doula in attendance. The birth of our daughter turned out to be a beautiful, blissful and amazing experience. It was the most intense experience of my life, yet I did not experience pain. I birthed Anjali on the day I envisioned and labored at the time I had envisioned as well, in the peacefulness and privacy of my own home. We felt truly blessed.

After the birth, my husband Jeremy and I became inspired to train inhypnosis so that we could develop our own hypnobirthing methods and empower women who want to have a natural birth process without fear. We each became certified in hypnosis, accredited by the International Certification Board Of Clinical Hypnotherapy (ICBCH). Our continued work in this field combined with the feedback we have received over the years help us continually refine our program.

Unlike most other hypnobirthing programs, we offer extensive experience in medicine and music in addition to hypnotherapy. I am a board certified physician with extensive pain training and Jeremy has over 20 years experience composing music for meditation and yoga. We have blended this experience along with our personal experience using these techniques to bring you a quality program that will change your life.

The Birth Relaxation Kit is a complete birth hypnosis program and comes in three different packages: Basic ($49), Plus ($79), and Deluxe ($499).

The Basic package has everything you need to learn and practice hypnosis techniques for your labor and birth.

If you'd like personalized one-on-one support, you can order the Deluxe package ($499). It includes all the materials from the Plus package, as well as a personalized hypnosis mp3, 2 phone consultations, and 2 phone or Skype hypnosis sessions.

I reviewed the Plus package while it was in the final stages of development, so I received everything except the sleep and postpartum mp3s.

~~~~~

I highly recommend the Birth Relaxation Kit. Mavi narrated all of the hypnosis tracks, and her voice was soothing and calming. (Sometimes the narrator of the Hypnobabies program got on my nerves, so I was really picky when testing out the BRK).

Jeremy composed all of the music for the BRK. I'm a trained musician, and I cannot focus on anything else if the background music is too loud. Fortunately, the Birth Relaxation Kit's music was at the perfect volume: audible but never dominant or distracting. I sensed rather than heard the music when Mavi was speaking. Exactly how it should be.

I found the Birth Relaxation Kit incredibly relaxing during pregnancy. I've used hypnosis for all my labors during the early stages. However, the main value of hypnosis, for me, came in the daily deep relaxation during the final months of pregnancy. Hypnosis pulled me through the normal worries of pregnancy, terrible bouts of sleeplessness, and anxiety over various concerns (Dio's breech presentation, possible GD during Inga's pregnancy, etc.).

If you are looking for an affordable alternative to hypnosis classes or self-study programs such as Hypnobabies, the Birth Relaxation Kit is exactly what you need.

~~~~~

I've been reflecting on Ivy's birth. Every new detail I remember leads me to suspect that she was posterior the entire labor and for most of pushing. I never felt the amazing, pleasurable high between contractions that I was used to experiencing from my three previous labors. I could tell that the endorphins and other hormones were still there, but they manifested as dizziness rather than as "la-la-ahhhhhh" goodness. I never felt a complete break between contractions. The intensity and pain lessened, but never faded away entirely. I also had constant rectal pressure for most of my labor.

Ivy's labor was definitely my most challenging, although not the longest or the shortest. I wonder how much more intense the birth might have been, had I not done daily hypnosis sessions with the Birth Relaxation Kit.

~~~~~

To end the review, I want to include some of my correspondence with Jeremy. We were discussing our motivations for using hypnosis. I mentioned that my main goal wasn't to avoid pain; it was to embrace every sensation without judgment. He responded:

That you touch on the fact that your goal was not to avoid pain or have a "comfortable" birth, and that those goals are contrived, is so honest....I love that you want to "let birth be what it will be" and "to accept every sensation without judgment, fear or anxiety." I think undoing the fear and anxiety are the most important elements of our program (and, if I may speak for Madhavi, my wife, her birth experience). But to say you "accept every sensation without judgment, fear or anxiety," is so eloquent and speaks directly to birthing itself, not just the fear and anxiety that is felt during pregnancy.

4 comments:

Thank you for this review. I've wanted to use hypnosis more fully in preparing for the birth of my second child, but I wasn't sure the price was worth it. I used the free downloads from Hypnobirthing to prepare for childbirth and repeated them in my head whenever I felt the need during labor, but feel like I short changed the program. Your review has been most helpful.

I just bought one of these packages, and I was wondering, Rixa, if you really did set aside an hour a day to just listen to one of the tracks. I see they recommend that in their Getting Started pdf, but I have a 2.5 year old and don't really have an hour a day (when he's sleeping, I have to be working, unfortunately). I'm just curious how you managed this with three kids, since this is something I really want to do!

Nowhere near an hour a day--just 20-30 minutes to listen to the one track, and that was usually when I was going to sleep. If you have other kids, it's simply not realistic to find quiet time during the day.